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Optimization or Marketing: What Type of Search Should a Company Spend Money On?

Companies are rushed to get the next sale. Quotas and jobs are on the line. So what type of marketing is best for a company? It all depends on time and money.

Search Engine Optimization or the acronym SEO, takes a longer time to see results. This type of marketing is considered “organic” because it is not paid for. There are nuances that are made to sites that drive customers to it. Have you ever looked beyond page 1 of a search made on Google? Bravo to you if you have and then given the company on page 5 your business. “About 75% of clicks go to the top five results” (Griffith, T., 2019).

Although SEO is considered free because you don’t pay for the advertising, it is far from it. Companies are paying either someone internally to perform behind the scenes requirements to start to reach more customers organically. If it isn’t an internal person, it could be an outside company hired with the task. Either way, there is a cost.

SEM or Search Engine Marketing can be very costly but results are quick to see. The ads you see on the top of Google searches are all paid for however, there is no guarantee that your company will appear on the first page. Google ranks ads and takes other factors into consideration. This is an area to research if chosen (Lincoln, J.,2020).

There are no guarantees that the paid ads will gain a company sustained future customers. When a company does SEM in-house, if they don’t have an expert on the payroll, they have to go by trial and error. Depending on their budget, this can use their dollars up quickly without seeing results. There are ways to go slowly with the ad budget and ramp it up as you see or don’t see results. Going with an outside company who has done this before may be a better way to spend the money and see immediate results (Lincoln, J., 2020).

The Pros of SEO:

The Cons of SEO:

  • Can be less costly
  • Can be done in-house
  • Sustaining results
  • Can be used in conjuction with SEM

  • It takes time to see results
  • Can be costly
  • Learning curve to understand and implement in-house

The Pros of SEM:

The Cons of SEM:

  • Quick Results
  • Can decide your budget
  • Highly visible on search engines
  • Very Costly
  • If in-house, can be a learning curve
  • Need to monitor to see which performs best

There are many benefits to both and they can be combined in some fashion to get immediate results with SEM while beginning the SEO journey. Another benefit to combining is learning from an outside company that provides your SEM work while keeping SEO onsite and building that knowledge. There are so many ways to go about SEO and SEM. Businesses need to assess what is right at this moment and be able to change their focus as they build their business up. Being nimble, patient and open minded is key to being successful.

Reference

Griffith, T., (2019, December 18). An SEO tutorial for complete beginners: Become an SEO expert. ClickMinded. https://www.clickminded.com/learn-how-seo-works/#:~:text=How%20does%20SEO%20work%3F%201%20Document%20Relevancy.%20It%E2%80%99s,last%20piece%20of%20SEO%20is%20technical%20optimization.

Lincoln, J., (2020, March 27). SEO vs. SEM: What’s the difference?. Ignite Visibility. https://ignitevisibility.com/difference-seo-sem/

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